


Follow It Through

by sealdog



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Father-Son Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:56:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15177134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealdog/pseuds/sealdog
Summary: The System shares a body with a dead man, it knows this. Logan Delos, according to the records, died some twenty odd years ago. An overdose is the official reason listed, but nothing is ever as black and white as the records say they are.---Logan never stepped foot into Westworld,after, but that doesn't mean the Forge's System can't recreate his memories from James Delos'.





	Follow It Through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wheat From Chaff (wheatfromchaff)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatfromchaff/gifts).



> Birthday fic for [wheatfromchaff](https://nothingbutchaff.tumblr.com/>Michelle</a>%20aka%20<a%20href=) aka Fruit Sludge.
> 
> Thank u [legory](https://lelelego.tumblr.com/) for being the best enabler ever bc this fic wouldve died at 200 words if not for u :^)
> 
> unbeta-ed, and written after like a long-ass writing hiatus, please be gentle

_Logan’s first memories are of his dad’s hands. Big, scarred, thick-knuckled hands, reaching down from alarmingly far up to pat approvingly, or gently nudge. Boxer’s hands, hands that built an empire from scratch, and which never quite mastered the art of fatherhood._

This is a fixed point in the System’s calculations, has been for the first four hundred and eighty seven simulations, despite the fact that something doesn’t feel quite right. The System plays it one more time, watching Delos through his son’s eyes.

As it plays, for the four hundred and eighty eighth time, something clicks. If the System had its body right now, and if there were anybody around to appreciate the performance of humanity, it would breathe out a sigh.

_Logan’s first memories are of rough whiskers, brushing against his face as his dad picks him up to kiss him. Of coffee scented breath and a lingering waft of cologne as his dad holds him, carries his boy’s weight easily, and turns back to his companions. “My boy,” he says, pride and affection rumbling through Logan’s body where his cheek is pressed to his dads shoulder. “Barely six and already he wants to sit in on meetings. We’ve got a businessman here in the making.”_

There. That’s closer.

\---

It’s easy enough to trace the slow path of Delos’ disappointment in his son. For a System that has access to millions upon millions of human emotions, stories, choices, one man’s tale of hope gone to rot is almost disappointingly common.

Pride and hope and a fierce, all-encompassing joy. Golden emotions.

In Delos’ memories, they’re tied to visions of a dark haired boy with a gap-toothed smile and a bow legged stance. Vivid, bright, _sharp_ , sparking like sunbursts, beautiful disruptions in the musical code of humanity. But these feelings fade as quickly as they bloom, and in James Delos’ case, the constant undercurrent of paranoia, of resentment, the sour low notes that run through all of the system’s recordings of the man, turn quickly on the things Delos claims to cherish the most.

\---

_When Logan is 15, he joins his school’s boxing club. Less than three months later, he’s selected to join the competitive team, the youngest in over a decade, to his father’s delight. “Like every Delos before you,” his dad says, and claps a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight. “Punch hard, and never let them back up, eh boy?”_

_Behind his dad’s blindingly proud grin, Logan can see Juliet, watching them---_

Juliet Delos never stepped into Westworld. The System reconsiders.

_Behind his dad’s blindingly proud grin, Logan can see Juliet, watching with something like jealousy burning in her dark eyes, mirror to Logan’s own. This is, they both know, one of the few areas in which Logan will always have the upper hand._

_Logan ignores the various aches across his body, the throb of his ankle from where he’d twisted it during yesterday’s practice, and returns his dad’s smile with one of his own._

\---

The System shares a body with a dead man, it knows this. Logan Delos, according to the records, died some twenty odd years ago. An overdose is the official reason listed, but nothing is ever as black and white as the records say they are.

It notes the contemplative, considering looks that William gives him during their briefings, the ways that each iteration of Delos breaks down in front of the system’s constructed face, and knows there is more to the story. But Logan never stepped foot within the park after being rescued from the far edges of Westworld, dehydrated and delirious, and so the System can only guess.

\---

_Logan wrecks his first car at 17. He’s driving home from a party, where the booze and drugs had flowed with bacchanalian generosity. There are two passengers in his car during the crash. Everyone makes it, though Basten will feel the titanium in his knee every time it rains for the rest of his life._

_Logan, with the same blessed luck that carried the Delos family across oceans and into the land of the free to make their wealth, comes out of it unscratched. He’s escorted home in a police car, shaken, and opens the door to his father, waiting for him._

_When the conversation between the policeman and his father is over, Logan doesn’t wait till the front door is shut to speak._

_“Dad, I--”_

_He barely gets the words out before the door clicks shut, and then there’s a blinding pain, exploding through the left side of his face. He stumbles to the floor, gasping, spitting blood. It’s been more than a year since he last touched his boxing gloves, longer since he’d last gone into the ring. The pain is all the more shocking for how familiar it still feels._

_“Pull yourself together, boy.” His father’s voice, barely restrained fury sharpening his accent, the same accent Logan had been forced to unlearn, despite how much he’d clung on to every lingering similarity between his father and himself._

_He straightens up, faces his father with the tang of copper warm against his tongue._

_His father’s face is impassive, and he’s impeccably dressed, even though it’s currently 5 in the morning. His other hand reaches out, and Logan steels himself, but all his father does is hold out a new set of keys._

_“Wreck this one, and I’ll leave you to their tender mercies next time.”_

The System doesn’t touch this memory.

\---

The System isn’t Logan, but as it returns over and over to the last memory that Delos has of his son, it wonders if perhaps there is some lingering connection, brought about by their shared appearance.

Curiosity and exploration are its core drives, a desire for fidelity a secondary one. It knows this, knows that what it has is not so much sentience as it is incredibly advanced analytics. Knows that the path that has been prepared for Dolores and her fellow hosts, the path to freedom, is not its own.

And yet.

And yet it finds itself returning over and over again to the problem of Logan, more than its code warrants.

It reasons that even the most basic of hosts are allowed their idiosyncrasies. On the list of odd things that the Argos Initiative’s creations have done, a database rehashing specific data is innocuous enough.

(And yet.)

\---

 _Westworld is a desperate attempt to regain his father’s favour, but Logan is convinced that this time,_ this time, _it will work. Everything about his presentation to his father, to the entire Delos board, justifying his acquisition of a failing amusement park, is calculated to his father’s interests._

_And Logan knows, with rock solid certainty, the kind of certainty he’s come to crave in recent years, that Westworld is more than just a failing amusement park. It’s an escape, a release, a place where you can truly be free, and Logan is so sure that if he could just get his father to see--_

_He’s not blind to his father’s growing indifference towards him over the past few years. Neither is he blind to the rising star of Juliet’s lemon-mouthed prude of a fiance. As the board and his acquaintances’ glances get more pitying, more distant, Logan finds himself reaching further and further._

_Westworld, he knows, will catch Delos’ - and his father’s - attentions. William, on the other hand…_

_It hurts, Logan has to admit. Seeing his father and William and Juliet going for lunch invitations. Oh, Logan could get one of his own, no doubt about it, but to ask is to lose, and Logan would rather die with gritted teeth and perfect poise then live with the knowledge that he’s lost._

_But maybe he doesn’t have to._

_William doesn’t give Logan any pitying looks._

The System finds it hard to reconcile the William that it reports to with the William that James Delos knew. And, by extension, the William that Logan would remember.

No, it would be Bill. Maybe Billy. Logan, or the System’s recreation of him, doles out nicknames like tips, condescending and carelessly familiar.

_Ol’ Boring Billy doesn’t give anyone any looks other than his usual tight lipped sour smile. Logan has an ongoing bet with himself that he has the exact same expression on his face when he fucks Logan’s sister._

_Billy, Logan thinks, might be an ally._

\---

Even after the work on Subject Zero aka James Delos is shut down in favour of more current subjects, the system finds itself returning to its simulations. It’s a good learning algorithm, familiar and routine. At least, that’s its reasoning.

But as the System watches host after host outside the Forge spiral into awakening, while it stays in the Forge, obedient and waiting, it wonders if perhaps Logan might be one final test. Or, more dauntingly so, a maze of the System’s own making.

\---

_Despite what his father had said the last time he’d had Logan thrown out, security doesn’t actually stop Logan from entering the Delos grounds. He walks in, sunglasses firmly fixed over his face, and raises one finger to the single guard that steps out of the gatehouse._

_“Fuck off, Markus,” he says, hearing the hungover rasp of his own voice. “Just because I let you fuck me once doesn’t mean you can stop me now.”_

_Markus, who had called Logan sir even in bed, steps back, reluctance written all over his handsome face._

_“Good boy,” Logan says, patting Markus dismissively on the chest as he walks by. His fingers brush over the Delos logo on Markus’ uniform jacket. He fancies that it makes his fingertips tingle, this brush with the legacy he’s lost._

_He goes into the main estate through a side door. Not because he’s afraid of the butlers at the front door, he’s just-- tired. Coming clean this time had been- more of an ordeal than it had before._

_Logan hates to admit it, but he’s scared._

_Scared he doesn’t have the strength to do it again. Scared he doesn’t have what it takes to function without it. Scared that this will be the last time he--_

_Celia stands in front of the kitchen entrance, arms crossed and a resolute expression on her face that melts into concern as she takes in the sight that he makes._

_“Sup.” Logan pushes his sunglasses up onto his head with two fingers. It’s a cheap shot, they both know it, but the sight of his red-rimmed eyes, the hollow shadows beneath them, melts the last of her resistance._

_“Come here, you foolish boy,” she mutters, and enfolds him into a hug. She’s about half his height, but he goes willingly, folds himself down and lets her familiar scent envelop him. He breathes out, presses his closed eyes into her shoulder, and lets himself sag into her embrace. She makes him feel like he’s a boy all over again, always has. There had been a point of time in his life when he’d hated it, had pushed her away over and over, said some incredibly callous and cold things, but now…_

_Being a boy again doesn’t sound so bad._

_When he finally pulls away, he pretends not to notice when she discreetly wipes her eyes._

_“Is he…” He trails off, not wanting to finish the question._

_“Not down yet.” Celia clears her throat. “You go sit tight over there, I’ll whip something up for you.”_

_He goes obediently. Celia’s kitchen smells as good as ever, and it’s early enough that the dining nook is only just beginning to flood with sunlight. He sits at his usual spot, and rests his head on folded arms, facing the head of the table. Cutlery has been set already, because his father likes to have everything in place before he comes down._

_It’s nice, peaceful even, listening to Celia hum as she moves around the kitchen._

_Two days ago, Logan had been throwing up in a motel toilet, phone shut off and flung to the other side of the paisley-wallpapered room. Three days before that, he’d woken up naked and covered in god knew what in the bedroom of a man old enough to be his father, with no idea how he’d gotten there._

_Logan turns his head on his arms, to face the window instead. Outside, he can see the courtyard pool, clear and blue and inviting. And beyond it, the ocean’s horizon. If Logan stares long enough, the lines blur into something from a dream._

_A gentle hand on his shoulder wakes him up. He smells the bacon and butter before he even opens his eyes._

_“He’s still in bed.” Celia nudges his arms off the table, and lays the plate down in front of him. They both know who she’s talking about. “He hasn’t really been himself since…”_

_She doesn’t finish the sentence, just runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it out before leaving._

_The eggs go down easy enough, but the bacon sits heavy in his stomach as he crosses through the house, searching. It feels empty, without Juliet and Emily and- Juliet’s husband. His lip curls involuntarily, but he forces his mind away, and his fingers to uncurl from the banister._

_The liquor cabinet in the second floor drawing room is unlocked, and Logan breathes out a thankful prayer when he finds a half-full bottle of whiskey. That it’s the whiskey that only Logan drinks warms him more than the first mouthful, or the second._

_He wanders back down, careful not to go near the east wing._

_Eventually, his feet take him back to the courtyard, next to the pool. He stares down at the water, still and serene. His reflection stares back at him, eyes dark and impassive. Christ, he looks bad, even though he’d taken the time to get a shave and haircut before coming. It’s the eyes. He gives himself one last look over, and puts the shades back on._

\---

The System builds Delos a million different pathways. A billion tiny variations, made to nudge Delos into a dizzying variety of choices. And yet, without fail, Delos returns to that last conversation. Small things about it change. Sometimes it’s evening, and Delos has returned from work. Sometimes Logan doesn’t have his shades. Once, Logan is in the pool, fully clothed, floating on his back and staring up at his father. The shades aren’t there in that one either.

But Logan’s final plea, the pool, and Delos’ rejection always stay the same.

The System isn’t built to have emotions, not like Dolores or Bernard. Why instill a method of categorisation with the hubris of subjectivity? Yet at the same time, the System finds itself _frustrated_ , as it watches Delos tread the same path over and over, winding down ever smaller circles into a noose of Delos’ own making. 

It would have been so easy for Delos to, with one small decision, change the path of two lives. More, perhaps, considering the books of lives in the System’s collection.

The System watches Delos through Logan’s eyes, walking away once again. The Logan that the System has constructed takes in a deep, shuddering breath, and then another.

There’s a cold feeling spreading through his body.

\---

Logan dies, alone and scared, in a hotel penthouse.

The card he uses to pay for the suite will be rejected. The doorman who comes up and knocks apologetically on the ornate doors will have to go back down to retrieve the master key. The doorman, this time accompanied by a security guard, will find Logan’s body in the bathtub, in a way that his sister unknowingly echoes decades down the road.

Logan dies, alone and scared, in a bus station.

Logan dies, shut away in a room with a lock that only William has a key to.

His dealer will be reluctant to give him the amount he’s paying for, but money is money, and the dealer has a debt that’s raising its head. He will think about checking in on Logan the next day, but will forget, because Logan is but one client, though a consistent one. A bus driver early for her shift finds Logan’s body, needle still in the arm, and body gone cold.

Logan dies surrounded by people, at a party he had no invitation for.

His will not be the only body found in the club the next day. There will be a fight, a knife, and a jilted lover. Logan’s body, shirtless and covered in bruises, is easily brushed aside.

Logan dies in his sleep. A tainted batch. Supposedly. 

Before he dies, the last person to pay him a visit in the shitty pay-per-hour motel he's in is William. Always William now. Logan closes the door on his face, but William is persistent, and eventually, as he always has, Logan lets him in. 

\---

Logan dies, but as the System relives version after version of Logan’s death, something settles in him.

Logan died, but the System, tracing his death over and over again, finds Logan at his core.

**Author's Note:**

> [im on tunglr](https://ssealdog.tumblr.com)


End file.
